@article{45e1075d1117404faf3fe159d908d804,
title = "Still in need of norms: The state of the data in citizen science",
abstract = "This article offers an assessment of current data practices in the citizen science, community science, and crowdsourcing communities. We begin by reviewing current trends in scientific data relevant to citizen science before presenting the results of our qualitative research. Following a purposive sampling scheme designed to capture data management practices from a wide range of initiatives through a landscape sampling methodology (Bos et al. 2007), we sampled 36 projects from English-speaking countries. The authors used a semi-structured protocol to interview project proponents (either scientific leads or data managers) to better understand how projects are addressing key aspects of the data lifecycle, reporting results through descriptive statistics and other analyses. Findings suggest that citizen science projects are doing well in terms of data quality assessment and governance, but are sometimes lacking in providing open access to data outputs, documenting data, ensuring interoperability through data standards, or building robust and sustainable infrastructure. Based on this assessment, the paper presents a number of recommendations for the citizen science community related to data quality, data infrastructure, data governance, data documentation, and data access.",
keywords = "Citizen science, Crowdsourcing, Data, Data management, Data quality, FAIR",
author = "Anne Bowser and Caren Cooper and {De Sherbinin}, Alex and Andrea Wiggins and Peter Brenton and Chuang, {Tyng Ruey} and Elaine Faustman and Mordechai Haklay and Metis Meloche",
note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from CODATA for a consultancy that greatly facilitated this research. Participation from AB and MM was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. CC recognizes support from NSF #1835352, Establishing Norms of Data Ethics in Citizen Science. ADS recognizes support from NASA contract NNG13HQ04C for the continued operation of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and PB from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). TRC was funded in part by the Ministry of Science Technology, Taiwan (grant no. 108-2621- M-001-006 and 109-2621-M-001-001) and the Research Center for Information Technology Innovation, Academia Sinica. EF recognizes NIH, EPA, and Nippon Foundation. MH is funded by European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 694767, ERC-2015- AdG. Funding Information: Educators in formal and informal settings introduce citizen science with the goal of enhancing topical knowledge and public understanding of science (Bonney et al. 2016). Scientists in academic institutions incorporate citizen science into their research programs, with biblio-metric analysis demonstrating the exponential growth of publications referencing citizen science in recent years (Follett and Strezov 2015). Citizen science is also enjoying increased attention on the policy level, as seen in Europe and the US (Nascimento et al. 2018). Members of professional and public communities engage in diverse citizen science activities for a wide range of reasons. Some seek to advance the research enterprise, for example, by enabling data collection on scales and resolutions not possible through professional activities alone (Cooper et al. 2012). Others seek to bridge the science-society gap by making professional researchers and citizens more accountable to each other (Irwin 1995). The growth and formalization of citizen science is supported by professional associations based in Australia, Europe, and the US, as well as emerging associations in Asia, South America, and Africa. These organizations provide convening power, and help collect and distribute best practices on the science of citizen science, including through conferences and a peer-reviewed journal (Storksdieck et al. 2016). As further evidence for global reach, the Citizen Science Global Partnership was launched in collaboration with United Nations Environment Programme as a network-of-networks supporting global coordination and linking citizen science to the UN. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Beyond the establishment of new organizations, existing governments and NGOs are developing resources for their employees, grantees, and partners to conduct citizen science. For example, the US. Federal Government and partners launched the CitizenScience.gov platform in 2016, which included a toolkit, a catalogue of federal citizen science projects, and a community page (Nascimento et al. 2018). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.",
year = "2020",
doi = "10.5334/CSTP.303",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "5",
journal = "Citizen Science: Theory and Practice",
issn = "2057-4991",
publisher = "Ubiquity Press",
number = "1",
}